Polypedates maculatus (Gray, 1830)

Class: Amphibia > Order: Anura > Family: Rhacophoridae > Subfamily: Rhacophorinae > Genus: Polypedates > Species: Polypedates maculatus

Hyla maculata Gray, 1830, Illust. Indian Zool., Part 3: pl. 82. Type(s): Based on animal pictured in original plate; possibly originally in collection of Major-General Thomas Hardwicke; location possibly in BMNH at one time, but now unknown and presumed lost. Type locality: "Bengal" [India and Bangladesh].

Bürgeria maculata Tschudi, 1838, Classif. Batr.: 34, 75. Syntypes: MNHNP "No. 44" (2 specimens), by original designation. Type locality: "Küste von Malabar" (= Coast of Malabar, India). Biju, 2001, Occas. Publ. Indian Soc. Conserv. Biol., 1: 8, noted the imprecision of this type locality. Synonymy by Boulenger, 1882, Cat. Batr. Sal. Coll. Brit. Mus., Ed. 2: 88. [Note, this is not a nomen nudum as previously reported and not coined as a synonym of Hyla maculata Gray, which Tschudi considered to be a junior synonym of Polypedates leucomystax—DRF.]

Hyla Reynoudi Tschudi, 1838, Classif. Batr.: 34, 75. Proposed as an objective synonym of Hyla maculata Gray, 1834, referencing the jar label name of the syntypes of Bürgeria maculata Tschudi, 1838.

Polypedates maculatus — Günther, 1859 "1858", Cat. Batr. Sal. Coll. Brit. Mus.: 78. Günther, 1864, Rept. Brit. India: 428.

Rhacophorus maculatus — Boulenger, 1882, Cat. Batr. Sal. Coll. Brit. Mus., Ed. 2: 83.

Rhacophorus acanthostomus Werner, 1901, Zool. Anz., 24: 98. Holotype: ZMB. Type locality: "Ratnapura, Ceylon". Synonymy by Kirtisinghe, 1957, Amph. Ceylon: 55. S. Dutta (personal comm.) regards this synonymy as unlikely, the name more probably belonging to the synonymy of Polypedates crucifer, Polypedates eques, or Polypedates longinasus.

Rhacophorus (Polypedates) maculatus — Bourret, 1927, Fauna Indochine, Vert., 3: 264.

Rhacophorus (Rhacophorus) maculatus — Ahl, 1931, Das Tierreich, 55: 133; Dubois, 1987 "1986", Alytes, 5: 77.

Rhacophorus (Rhacophorus) acanthostomus — Ahl, 1931, Das Tierreich, 55: 120, 137.

Rhacophorus leucomystax maculatus — Wolf, 1936, Bull. Raffles Mus., 12: 181.

Polypedates (Polypedates) maculatus — Mahony, Kamei, Brown, and Chan, 2024, Vert. Zool., Senckenberg, 74: 256, by implication.

Common Names

Spotted Tree Frog (Gray, 1830, Illust. Indian Zool., Part 1: pl. 82; Mathew and Sen, 2010, Pict. Guide Amph. NE India: 105; de Silva, 2009, Amph. Rep. Sri Lanka Photograph. Guide: 127).

Common Indian Tree-frog (Günther, 1864, Rept. Brit. India: 428).

Common Tree Frog (Daniel and Sekar, 1989, J. Bombay Nat. Hist. Soc., 86: 199; Daniels, 2005, Amph. Peninsular India: 164).

Spotted Whipping Frog (Frank and Ramus, 1995, Compl. Guide Scient. Common Names Amph. Rept. World: 113; Shrestha, 2001, Herpetol. Nepal: 93).

Indian Tree Frog (Das and Dutta, 1998, Hamadryad, 23: 67).

Chunam Frog (Schleich, Anders, and Kästle, 2002, in Schleich and Kästle (eds.), Amph. Rept. Nepal: 80; Daniels, 2005, Amph. Peninsular India: 164; Dinesh, Radhakrishnan, Gururaja, and Bhatta, 2009, Rec. Zool. Surv. India, Occas. Pap., 302: 114).

Common Indian Tree Frog (Polypedates maculatus maculatus: Das and Dutta, 1998, Hamadryad, 23: 67).

Common Indian Treefrog (Zug, 2022, Smithson. Contrib. Zool., 653: 43).

Big-headed Whipping Frog (Dinesh, Radhakrishnan, Deepak, and Kulkarni, 2023, Fauna India Checklist, vers. 5.0 : 12).

Distribution

Below 3000 m from Nepal, Bhutan, and Sikkim south throughout India except the northeastern states and Haryana, Rajasthan, and Punjab; Bangladesh; Sri Lanka; Myanmar (Chin and Magway). 

Geographic Occurrence

Natural Resident: Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Myanmar, Nepal, Sri Lanka

Comment

Records of this species from the Northeast of India likely apply to Polypedates himalayensis following Gogoi and Sengupta, 2017, Das (ed.), Diversity Ecol. Amph. India: 32–48. In the Rhacophorus (Rhacophorus) leucomystax group of Dubois, 1987 "1986", Alytes, 5: 77; see comment under Polypedates. See account (as Rhacophorus leucomystax maculatus) by Kirtisinghe, 1957, Amph. Ceylon: 55-58. Discussed by Dubois, 1987 "1986", Alytes, 5: 82-85 (who noted that this is likely a complex of species), Daniel and Sekar, 1989, J. Bombay Nat. Hist. Soc., 86: 199, and Dutta and Manamendra-Arachchi, 1996, Amph. Fauna Sri Lanka: 179-182. Chanda, 2002, Handb. Indian Amph.: 171-172, 220-221, and Sarkar and Ray, 2006, In Alfred (ed.), Fauna of Arunachal Pradesh, Part 1: 309-310, provided brief accounts for India. Ray, 1999, Mem. Zool. Surv. India, 18: 72-77, provided an account. Anders, 2002, in Schleich and Kästle (eds.), Amph. Rept. Nepal: 325-330, provided an account, figure, and map for the Nepal population. See brief account by Shrestha, 2001, Herpetol. Nepal: 93-94. Sarkar, Biswas, and Ray, 1992, State Fauna Ser., 3: 92, provided a brief account for West Bengal, India. Dutta, 1997, Amph. India Sri Lanka: 96-97, provided systematic notes, access to literature, and range. Daniels, 2005, Amph. Peninsular India: 164-167, provided an account for peninsular India. Agnihotri, 2002, Cobra, Chennai, 50: 25-26, provided a record for Rajasthan, northwestern India. Mehta, 2005, in Alfred (ed.), Fauna W. Himalaya, Part 2: 270, reported the species in Himanchal Pradesh, India, without noting specific localities. Mathew and Sen, 2010, Pict. Guide Amph. NE India: 105, provided a brief characterization and a photograph. Das and Dutta, 2007, Hamadryad, 31: 154–181, noted a number of larval descriptions in the literature. de Silva, 2009, Amph. Rep. Sri Lanka Photograph. Guide: 127, provided a brief account and color photograph for Sri Lanka. See Shah and Tiwari, 2004, Herpetofauna Nepal: 79, for brief account. Sivaprasad, 2013, Common Amph. Kerala: 152–153, provided a brief account, photograph, and dot map for Kerala, India. See Subba, Aravind, and Ravikanth, 2016, Check List, 13(1: 2033): 10–11, for Sikkim, India, record. Wangyal and Gurung, 2012, Frog Leg, 18: 38, provided a record for Bhutan, as Polypedates cf himalayanus. Sharma, 2005, Frog Leg, 12: 3, provided a range map for the state of Rajasthan, India. Deuti, Sethy, and Ray, 2014, Rec. Zool. Surv. India, 114: 136–137, provided a  brief account for the Eastern Ghats population, India. Sreekumar and Dinesh, 2020, Rec. Zool. Surv. India, 120: 33–40, discussed the range in Maharashtra, India, in terms of agro-climatic zones. Prasad, Gautam, Gupta, Murthy, Ramesh, Shinde, and Das, 2020, Zootaxa, 4851: 450–476, reported on morphology and advertisement call for a population in the Panna Tiger Reserve, Madhya Pradesh, central India. Khatiwada, Wang, Zhao, Xie, and Jiang, 2021, Asian Herpetol. Res., 12: 1–35, discussed the genetics of the Nepal population. Gayen, Dey, and Roy, 2021, Zoos' Print J., 36: 33–39, reported a record from Durgapur Subdivision, West Bengal, India. Ganesh and Guptha, 2021, J. Anim. Diversity, 3(3): 29, provided records from the Eastern Ghats, Andhra Pradesh, India. Zug, 2022, Smithson. Contrib. Zool., 653: 43, briefly discussed habitat, range, and identification in Myanmar. Srinivasulu and Kumar, 2022, J. Threatened Taxa, 14: 21268, reported the species from the state of Telangana, south-central India. Rout, Mahapatra, and Sahoo, 2022, Curr. Herpetol., Kyoto, 41: 180–195, reported on larval oral and buccopharyngeal morphology. Raj, Vasudevan, Aggarwal, Dutta, Sahoo, Mahapatra, Sharma, Janani, Kar, and Dubois, 2023, Alytes, 39–40: 108–112, reported on larval morphology of specimens from Odisha, India.

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